Tanit Phoenix

In 2008, Tanit Phoenix posed for her first topless photo for the South African Marie Claire.

Tanit Phoenix is the answer to one of life's most difficult questions: Which celebrity would you most like to go naked skydiving with? A South African model and actress by trade, and a thrill-seeker off-set, Tanit Phoenix has the looks to melt you in half and the enlightened, free-spirited mind to put you back together with a smile on your face.

SEX APPEAL

Tanit Phoenix is beautiful enough to seduce at will and brawny enough to kick ass when necessary. To put it in simpler terms: She'll own you in the bedroom, and she'll have your back in a bar fight. After all, her name means "goddess of the love," and she's trained in the explosive art of Muay Thai boxing. The South African edition of FHM gave her further beauty dues by featuring her on its 100 Sexiest Women list. We must say that we agree with this selection, otherwise, she might bite our skin while we're asleep (one of her fetishes) -- not that it wouldn't be fun.

Tanit Phoenix is not one to ignore the career benefits that nudity and steamy sex can offer. She says she's game for nudity and a spicy sex scene, as long as it doesn't make her look bad (that would be very difficult). Thus far, her risque career moves have included prehistoric pole dancing, strip-sky diving (don't ask, just watch) and multiple sex scenes in the film Maya, in which she hooked up with both the male and female leads.

SUCCESS

It takes a special kind of person to be coined "dangerously close to international stardom" at the 2005 KayOscars, and Tanit Phoenix fits the bill. Smart, sassy and sexy, she's hopefully destined to follow the same career path as Charlize Theron, another South African-born beauty who started as a model. Since then, the South African editions of Marie Claire and Cosmopolitan have featured her prominently, as has Maxim (Europe), which named her as 2003's Woman of the Year.

Also a frequent model in commercials, Tanit Phoenix has the type of beauty and on-screen charisma that keeps your attention and -- gasp -- leaves you in danger of buying the product. The horror! Now in the early stages of a film career, she has read lines opposite stars like Nicolas Cage and Jared Leto, while covering all of the important film genres thus far: TV series, cult comedy, crime drama, erotic thriller, and zombie horror -- the last of which is Gallowwalker, in which she rubbed elbows with human box-office poison Wesley Snipes and lived to tell about it.

Tanit Phoenix Biography

Tanit Phoenix grew up in South Africa and inherited her father's craving for adventure while developing a strong bond with the natural world around her. The daughter of a skydiver, she shared her dad's interest in free-falling and grew to love extreme sports of all kinds. An enlightened beauty if there ever was one, Phoenix also immersed herself in activities like playing guitar, Reiki and massage, giving her an intellectual depth that adds to her striking looks.

Tanit Phoenix naturally caught the eye of the modeling suits, and at 15, she signed with ICE Model Management. From there, she sought out the necessary combination of print and commercial acting gigs to keep her work lively and suitably challenge her young mind.

tanit phoenix conquers commercials

The world of commercials was (and still is) good to Tanit Phoenix. More than 20 of the commercials she appeared in were international, and she became an alluring presence in the process. A Tanit Phoenix commercial career retrospective would likely include her Volvic commercial, in which she pole danced for a group of prehistoric men, as well as a visually-stunning Transitions eyeglasses commercial that showed off the flora and fauna of her native South Africa.

Tanit Phoenix's most memorable commercial came in 2003 for the Fa line of shower gels. The ad featured her skydiving down from the heavens and taking off her clothing in mid-flight. Eyes glued, tongues wagged and European commercials became sexy all over again (they get all the good stuff). A German Maxim cover with Phoenix in a barely there swimsuit soon followed. As a result, she was named 2003's "Who's That Girl?" as part of the Woman of the Year Awards, courtesy of Maxim Europe. It was an awards ceremony that included other names like Halle Berry, Britney Spears, Jennifer Aniston, and Cameron Diaz.

tanit phoenix stars in lord of war and gallowwalker

Tanit Phoenix added to her repertoire in 2004 by joining the acting ranks. Her first role came in an episode of the TV series Charlie Jade as the dubiously named "Malachi's associate No. 1," a walk-on character if there ever was one. Her sophomore effort, 2005's Straight Outta Benoni, fared better -- she got a last name this time, playing Megan Alba -- and later that year she was Jared Leto's gal pal, Candy, in the Nicolas Cage-led Lord of War. Now dangerously close to international stardom, Phoenix was rewarded with an award of the same -- the "Dangerously Close to International Stardom" Award -- at the 2005 KayOscars.

In 2008, Tanit Phoenix posed for her first topless photo for the South African Marie Claire. The shoot was very personal for Phoenix, as its anti-rape and anti-violence theme led to the disclosure that she had survived an attempted assault a few years prior. On the movie front, Phoenix steamed up the screen in Maya, a Bollywood-produced film that featured her in a multitude of sex scenes interwoven with a story about spiritual possession that kept trying to interfere with all the sex. As she looks forward to a career with more acting, more commercials, and more skin, Tanit Phoenix steps into her biggest role to date, as a saloon girl in the zombie-western, Gallowwalker, top-lined by Wesley Snipes. While such an ominous leading man might be a bad luck charm to some, it's a safe bet that more people checked out the movie, just to catch a glimpse of this South African dame in action.